


If I Laugh

by jat_sapphire



Category: The Professionals (TV 1977)
Genre: M/M, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-11
Updated: 2019-11-11
Packaged: 2021-01-27 08:15:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21388972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jat_sapphire/pseuds/jat_sapphire
Summary: Bodie decides he can't be an agent of CI5 any more.
Relationships: William Bodie/Ray Doyle
Comments: 2
Kudos: 35





	If I Laugh

**Author's Note:**

> I've been hearing this song in my head for weeks now. Also, our Reading Room story "Bodie's Letter" by Ellis Ward made me think about separation stories and what they're for, what they give. I hope this one gives what readers want. The song is by the artist formerly known as Cat Stevens, and there's a video of it at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrqotYmuPak

After the bomb went off at Ryton Square, killing the bomb disposal man in spite of all that armour, Bodie seemed to retreat to some utterly remote, icy place where Doyle could not reach him. He spoke as little as possible during debriefing, and wrote a report that was so concise as to be more like notes than narrative. He wouldn't meet Doyle's eyes. He turned down a drink at the pub.

When Doyle pulled up to the kerb at Bodie's flat block, Bodie didn't even seem to notice, just staring into the middle distance, his face blank.

“Bodie,” Doyle said.

Nothing happened.

“_Bodie,_” Doyle repeated. “Talk to me, mate.”

For a moment, Bodie just looked, his eyes haunted. “I can't, Ray. I can't … do this any more. _Can't._”

“Gonna cut 'n run then?”

Bodie was silent, staring until Doyle wanted to shake an answer out of him.”Yeah, guess so,” he said at last.

Doyle wondered if he'd really known Bodie at all, all these years.

_If I laugh_  
_Just a little bit_  
_Maybe I can forget_  
_The chance that I didn't have_  
_To know you_  
_And live in peace, in peace_

They'd both threatened to resign, in rebellion, in rage, in despair. Still, Ray was shocked when, at Bodie's to pick him up next day, he found only a note.

''Ray,” it read, “Fait accompli. I'll clear out altogether this afternoon, but I'd like to have one last lunch. Got something to ask you. Pink Feathers at 1?”

Frustrated, upset, Ray tried the R/T, but only got HQ. “Agent 3.7 does not have an R/T unit now,” they told him. Ray drove to HQ as fast as he could without actual accident.

Cowley looked baffled, an expression Doyle could not remember ever seeing on his face.

“Have the two of you discussed leaving CI5 before?”

Doyle shrugged.

“Recently?”

“Yesterday,” Ray admitted. “I didn't –-I didn't think he meant it.”

“He seems to,” Cowley turned Bodie's ID wallet over and over in his hands.

“_I'm_ not quitting,” Ray said and swept out of the office before his temper got the better of him.

He turned up at the pub at 1 pm precisely. The deep “bong” of Big Ben shook his bones as he opened the car door. In the pub, he saw Bodie straight away. He was wearing that checked jacket and the pink shirt, his back against the wallpaper which was a darker pink, flocked paisley they'd laughed about when they'd first stepped foot there. Bodie was staring into his own pint and had one already set up for Doyle.

Ray pulled the nearest chair out and dropped into it.

“Ploughman's?” Bodie asked. Ray shrugged.

“Yeah, sure.”

Bodie waved at the barmaid.

“I can't believe this,” Ray blurted. “The Cow can't either, I think.”

Bodie took a sip of his beer.

“Bodie, for God's sake!”

At last, the dark blue eyes met Ray's. They were like indigo ink wells, unreadable.

“What if that'd been you, yesterday?” Bodie's voice was even, conversational. “If I'd been back with the other bomb disposal men, saw you suit up and then scattered in pieces the size of my hand all over Ryton Square?”

“How's that different from any other day we work?” Ray asked after a moment. “This can't be the first time you've thought of it.”

“This is the _last_ time I want to think of it.” Bodie shook his head, frowning. “If you're blown to Kingdom Come on the streets of London, I don't want to see it.”

“You'll—I mean you've saved me. Up to now.”

“Can't get away with it forever, Ray. Can't—” Bodie cleared his throat before he went on. “I can't stand the thought, if you want to know.”

“What if we hadn't been there? We wouldn't have even known the bomb was there until it went off.”

“With some Whitehall mandarin inside.” Bodie's mouth quirked.

Their food arrived, on the pub's heavy white pottery plates with a pink paisley border. It was good, as it always was. The wallpaper was the only thing Ray didn't like about this pub.

He said, “So you're just—running. Abandoning the Squad. Cowley.” He ate another bite, nerving himself. “Me.”

“You … you don't have to stay, you know.” Bodie looked down again, toyed with his knife.

Ray felt his temper flare. “Oh no! I'm not quitting because you've lost your nerve!” He took a deep breath, held it, let it go. “We do good, Bodie. I want to keep doing it.”

He nodded, face set. “Thought you'd say that.”

Ray didn't like to see Bodie look so defeated, but there was no help for it. “Was that what you wanted to ask me?”

Bodie shook his head. “No. That's, well, something I've been thinking, wanting … afraid to ask.”

“Afraid! You?”

Now Bodie's gaze was bright and hot, as intense as … almost like ….

“Wasn't sure … thought you might pound me, ask for re-teaming ….”

“If you're leaving,” Ray began, but Bodie reached across the table and _took his hand,_ held it firmly, warmly, and Ray realised what he was talking about. “Oh,” he said, voice involuntarily soft and rough.

“Yeah, oh,” Bodie said, a little humour in his voice, his hand still cradling Ray's, his thumb stroking a little, back and forth.

“How long?” Ray asked.

“Oh, dunno, how long have you been wearing your jeans painted on and your shirts unbuttoned?”

“Longer than I've known you.” Ray grinned.

“Since we met, then, I reckon.” Bodie grinned back.

Ray let the thought fully into his mind, only then realising how he'd been walling it out. He looked at Bodie's mouth, his throat, the way the checked jacket pulled across his muscular shoulders and arms. Remembered the way he looked when he ran, when he aimed his rifle and fired, when he shot a blue arrow glance at Ray when Cowley was briefing them or ordering them.

“Me too, then,” he admitted.

Bodie's grip tightened. “That a yes?” he asked.

Ray let himself imagine, for a moment, and felt heat flash through him. “Yours? Or mine?”

“It's the last day we could choose mine,” Bodie pointed out. “So let's.”

They went back to work that last afternoon through, first. They were assigned to Records, as if to remind them of the boring part of the job. As if either of them needed the reminder.

Hundreds of times they'd been to Bodie's—or one of Bodie's flats—at every time of day, and they were mostly the same: leather armchairs, a shelf of battered books, the rag-rug mat he kept at the kitchen sink, sometimes a house-plant dying in a pot. Things birds had left. Things of Ray's.

Ray had wondered what it was like to lie naked on that fake-fur coverlet, and while he'd wondered how it felt to Bodie, now he'd find out how he liked it himself. This once.

He'd better not dwell on “this once.”

But it was impossible not to. Bodie touched with such aching tenderness, such wistful care, his big warm hands shaped to Ray's skin, pulling his clothes open and off. Ray was nearly Bodie's height, yet the difference in bulk between the two of them and how much larger Bodie was than a bird made Ray feel small now. Bodie's protection was familiar, but his passion was new. Knowing how long Bodie had wanted him, how little time they had now, kept the prickle of tears in Ray's eyes so that he kept them closed and his mouth a little open, rough breath halting in and out, while Bodie whispered his name over and over: “Ray, Ray. Ray,” as if it were poetry.

If they had meant to remember this only as acting out their mutual lust, they were failing before it was even memory. Ray felt love pressed to his skin in Bodie's kisses, everywhere, stroked all over with Bodie's fingers, worked in the movement of Bodie's muscles, and Ray did not even dare to gaze into his eyes. Neither cried out in orgasm; the sounds they made were more like sobs, and Bodie pressed his face to Ray's chest and simply rested there. They slept without moving. Ray half-woke twice in the black of night, still clasped in Bodie's arms and pinned under his body. _Only this once,_ he thought and gloried in the motionless weight.

_And if I laugh_  
_Baby if I laugh just a little bit_  
_Maybe I can forget the plans that I didn't use_  
_To get you_  
_At home_  
_With me_  
_Alone_  


Separating their bodies in the morning was like pulling out hair, ripping out stitches, and neither could pretend that it was just the sting of dried semen sticking and tearing apart. Bodie's grimace reminded Ray of when he'd been stabbed or beaten and left in an alley, grim survival and no more. 

__

“Take the first shower,” Bodie said, though his grip did not loosen. “You're going in while I'm clearing out.”

“You'd meant to do it yesterday, hadn't you?”

“Yes,” through clenched teeth, and Bodie drew a couple of breaths before saying low, “I'm not sorry, though.”

“No. Good.” Ray kissed once more before leaving the messy bed. Morning mouth to remember, Bodie sex smells to carry into the bathroom and imprint in his mind. While hot water sprayed his face, Ray cried at last, though not for long.

Bodie had stripped the bed by the time Ray came out, shaved and wearing a towel round his hips. He made and ate toast and coffee while Bodie showered, shaved and dressed in one of his black polos and black slacks. He looked sleek and dangerous, but the desolation in his eyes made Ray's heart twist in his chest.

“You don't _have_ to go,” he blurted.

“I do,” Bodie said, drew breath as if to say more, then shut his mouth like a trap. His eyes burned again, and he reached out, grabbing fast and hard, high on Ray's arms, near the shoulders, as if to hold him up, and leaned forward as if to kiss but instead leaned his forehead against Ray's and let his prodigious eyelashes fall.

“No obits,” he said.

“No. And no international wire stories about a British national making any heroic self-sacrifice.”

“Me? Self-sacrifice?”

“You,” but Ray's voice fractured and he would say no more. Bodie's hands cupped Ray's face for a long moment, and then he stepped back and let go, and while Ray's eyes were still shut, Bodie gave him a little shove.

“Go on with you then,” and it half killed Ray that those should be the last words he would ever hear in Bodie's voice, but there they were. He walked out of the flat, down the stairs, and sat in the Capri until his vision was clear enough to drive.

He worked alone in an undercover op, with Jax on a surveillance that turned into a gunfight in an abandoned warehouse, and with Stuart on two or three short ops. Nobody died. The villains were caught without damage to the public. All very successful and healthily dull, and it still felt like pulling his own teeth to go to work every morning knowing that Bodie would not be there.

Weeks passed. Ray was moved to a new flat, and it was better than most, in a lovely little forgotten city square with roses nodding over the fence in his direction. The local was good, and the barmaids were friendly. Ray thought that if he were to ask, the girl on weekday evenings would go home with him, and she looked as though she knew what she was about. But he was honestly afraid of bursting into tears or calling out the wrong name, so he didn't ask. He played some darts, bought his rounds and walked home in the long summer evenings feeling thirty years older than he was, his joints creaking and sorrow hanging heavily around him, as if Bodie had died even though there were no international wire stories about dead British nationals, heroic or not.

He was lonely. He'd always liked Jax, but the man rarely went pubbing since he had a wife and child to go home to. Stuart was all right, especially now he didn't have that nervous interest in Bodie, but he seemed so intense that one couldn't relax with him. No one could ask him over—anyway Ray couldn't—for a game on the box or a home-made fry-up, a game of cards or a morning run, like a simple mate, and he never made jokes or glanced over to check Ray's position so they could move smoothly together. So many moments in a working day, Ray was used to a check-in, a nudge, a smile, a raised eyebrow, and they were all gone.

He should have left CI5 with Bodie. He should have just held onto Bodie that last morning, refused to let go, kissed until Bodie kissed back, spoken the words he'd swallowed.

Bodie would have told him that the saddest words of tongue or pen were “It might have been.”

Cowley gave him a weekend off. He biked and hiked and saw places that looked untouched these last 500 years. Saturday night after hiking all day, he did sleep, but he didn't feel happy or rested in the morning. The silk of Bodie's hair was in his palm, the hot prickle behind his eyes, and his whole body hungered for the weight that had covered him. One night, only one. Of all the nights in his life to now and stretching ahead for who knew how many years, only that one was lit and warmed by the love he hungered for. “Bodie,” he said aloud though his voice was weak and he was alone in a little hotel room, in one of two twin beds, burning from within until his skin was full of ash.

_If I laugh_  
_Baby if I laugh just a little bit_  
_Maybe I can recall the way that I used to be_  
_Before you_  
_And sleep at night_  
_And dream_

Ray dreamed of Bodie, quite unexpectedly, one fall night. Waking to a morning hour still black as midnight, he lay holding the image in his mind, Bodie pursing his lips in a mischievous smile, his eyes alight. That was love on his face, and Ray's face took the same expression, though there was no one there to see.

His assignment that morning was to deliver sandwiches and morning papers to three locations where agents were on obbo: Stuart, Anson, and Murphy. Stuart was civil but preoccupied. His case was bearing fruit. Anson's room was, as usual, dim with cigar smoke. Murphy was friendly as always, his clear brown eyes like swift-running river water, and full of chatter since he was watching alone, and his target seemed as torpid as a tortoise resting in his shell.

Ray remembered the unutterable boredom of observation when Bodie played hookey or slept when not taking his turn with the binoculars. The trouble was that anything he could stay interested in also used his eyes and rendered the whole exercise useless. Sometimes they made their turns shorter and shorter, until a mere ten minutes was all the time he needed to focus on the target. Hard on the “off” partner, not even time for a kip, but a comfort for the “on” partner. But poor Murphy, with no partner, saved up all his chatter for any hapless errand boy who had to come by.

“Did you see, at HQ? Heard there was a stir today.” Murphy's eyes were behind the binoculars, but his voice was eager.

“No,” Ray answered indifferently. “What stir?”

“Well, could be wrong.” Murphy dropped the idea as if it had cut him.

Not having an A-Squad partner made people a bit odd, Ray thought.

Back at HQ, everything seemed entirely ordinary. Ray nosed about a bit, but the place was nearly empty of agents, and the Controller, secretarial staff, and security officers seemed to be doing their normal work. The secretaries were giggling a bit, but Ray always did tease them, and so a bit of giggling was also normal.

A tall agent with a brush of dark hair was lying on the rest room couch, feet propped on one arm and head tucked down beside the other. Looked a bit like Stuart or Murphy, but he'd just seen them halfway across the city. It couldn't … Ray stopped in his tracks and stared, took a step or two closer, stopped again.

“_No,_” he said. The figure stirred.

Another step put him within arm's reach, and he put out one hand, but did not touch.

The man on the couch seemed to explode into wakefulness, throwing himself upright, almost to his feet, his hair ruffled into disarray. “Ray!” he said. “Ray!”

It was Bodie.

“You pillock,” Ray said, almost in a whisper. “What took you—why—how,” and stuttered to a stop.

Bodie stood up, and Ray sat down, feeling his knees almost give way. “You were _gone,_” he said stupidly.

Bodie sat down again, took Ray's nearer hand in both of his and chafed it. “I thought I could go,” he said. His mouth twisted. “I can't. Wondering, worrying—worse than watching you, worse than the fear. Because I still had the fear, and no way to _know._” Holding that one hand still, he reached across and took the other, half-turning, bobbing them up and down. “Can I stay, Ray?”

Ray looked carefully before he answered. Bodie looked older even though he hadn't been gone long. His hairline seemed a different shape, and the wrinkles beside his eyes seemed deeper. His hands were as steady, his eyes as intent. “I can't do without you,” Ray said. “You'd _better_ stay.”

“Of course you can't do without me,” Bodie said. “Glad to hear you admit it.” And then he laughed. It felt to Ray like food, like air.

“Prat,” he said, and laughed himself. Bodie let go one hand and put it on Ray's cheek, and looked like Ray was sunrise and spring together.


End file.
